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The Art Of Subtlety: How To Add Hints To Your Writing

Posted by
Jo Linsdell
at
7:30 AM

Giving subtle hints to your
readers is the part they will adore the most when reading your novel. They love
putting the pieces of the puzzle together and pretending they found the clues
themselves. Why not give them this chance to have fun solving puzzles? We,
writers, need to learn how to become more subtle in novels. We need to draw the
readers to the clues carefully. Clues are the answers to everything and the
authors need to implement them skillfully in the text. Here are a few ways how
to do it:

Create an emotional journey of your
characters

Unlike outer journeys that
show character’s adventures, it is also important to show how emotionally
overwhelmed they are in their own world. The reader should feel the inner state
of the character. It can either evolve from the outer journey or from deeper
inner emotions. By outer journey, I mean such adventures as, for example,
escaping from the castle or fighting someone. The spiritual journey can be,
let’s say, character’s deep desire to prove something to the world or find true
love. When the author learns how to combine inner and outer journeys and place
hints, it will be possible to achieve real subtlety in a novel.

Mystery style

Mystery genre can teach the
writers of other genres a lot. Here, readers should follow the clues in a
specified order. All the clues should be subtle and appear surprisingly in the
text at right moments. Keep your style mysterious and surprise your readers
with every hint you give them. Be creative.
Map your clues logically across the novel.

When preparing your clues,
consider a few tricks:

§They can be ambiguous.

§They can lead to a few different people.

§They can be wrongly read.

§They can make no sense until another clue helps to
makes it clear.

Don’t let the tension disappear till the
very end

You need to keep readers alert
all the time. They shouldn’t feel like they want to skip the whole chapter
because it’s boring and different from the rest. The tension needs to grow, not
get weaker. Invent characters who seemingly look good to the reader
and no one can even think about their malicious intentions. Avoid things that
are overly complicated and don’t be unfair towards your readers. You can
mislead your readers but you can’t tell them the bald lie.

The tension is critical in
novel writing. Otherwise, the reader will have all the reasons to close the
book and leave it for “never” to finish.

Alice Jones is a tutor and freelance writer, who is interested in education, blogging and sharing her ideas. She also loves inspiring and motivating people and has spent the last 5 years improving and helping the others to improve. Follow Alice on Twitter, Google+, or find her in other social media, pop in there and say “Hi” to her!